


Lovecraft in Derry

by Pennywot



Series: Lovecraft in Derry [1]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Dark Comedy, Eventual Smut, Gender-neutral Reader, Minor Character Death, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-20 08:51:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12429288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennywot/pseuds/Pennywot
Summary: After the Losers leave Derry and the defeated Pennywise behind, It is close to death. However, something else senses catches a glimpse of flickering deadlights. Driven to investigate by insatiable curiosity, the reader will leave the town they've molded and investigate the possibility of Another.A largely comedic fic about what happens when two immensely powerful eldritch beasts meet and are forced to confront the fact that they're no longer alone in the universe and beyond. Based mostly on the novel, but takes inspirations from the 2017 movie as well.





	1. Elilhrairah's Blessing

_"It is here oh oh It is here feeding on man oh..."_

  
The feeble, primitive thoughts attract your attention more than the hiss of falling sand and pebbles does. Their fear eddies around you and into you, the smallest licks of sweetness on the dry desert air. You don't even deign to look at the coyotes perched warily at the edge of the canyon. Animals have their own flavors, but they're nothing compared to the complex fears a human can provide. The part of you not crouched over the broken body has already glutted on fear tonight, a fine feast for the first night back. Now, you're idly nosing through hot flesh, taking select little bits and pieces to fill the stomach of this physical form.

  
The coyotes will take their share once you leave. Even though these canines are far too young to remember the last time you awakened, their kind remembers in a way man does not. Their little minds flash with images of roiling liquid darkness and teeth flashing in the moonlight. Flitting amidst fear and phantom pain are hunger and satisfaction, teeth crunching through tendons and tongues bathed in blood. Beyond them, you can feel the humans in the town. And beyond that...a sort of itch.

  
You are curious. Whenever you awake, your first action is not to satisfy your hunger. Instead, you examine your cave and the town above, eager to find out what has changed during your long rest. Your poking and prodding has gotten you into dangerous situations in the past, when the little humans who manage to figure out what's happening do something so enticing you can't help but investigate it. This itch has the same feeling of danger to it. The feeling of knowing that you really shouldn't approach, but that makes it all the more interesting.

  
You move away from the corpse to rest on a nearby boulder, tongue flicking bits of meat out of your fangs. Flitting your senses towards the itch doesn't reveal any new information other than that the source is far away, in terms of this planet's geography. There's a thin flicker in the macroverse, and you raise an eyebrow.

  
_"Is It leaving is it safe? The blood is still hot and oh the blood..."_

  
The much closer coyote-ramblings distract you, and you lose track of the movement in your true realm. You give a low hiss of displeasure, and the coyotes freeze in their descent. Their sudden ecstasy of fear doesn't improve your mood, and you leap off of your perch with a flourish. They aren't worth your time, not when you have a far tastier morsel to chew on. A wriggle through the thin reality of this universe has you at the mouth of your cave, and you shift your form. Traversing the place isn't particularly fun when you're in your favorite human guise, and you want to be able to think.  
If anyone were to observe you, all they'd see is a seemingly animate bed of moss, slinking and zipping through the caverns with ease. It's closer to what you really are than most other forms, and it's easy for you to leave the physical form heading for your den while you focus your attention on the macroverse. You can't pick up the track of the light you sensed earlier. It's here somewhere, you can still feel it on the edges of your senses. You croon and chatter to yourself, wondering.

  
That brief glimpse of light looked like deadlights.

  
Amidst your endless form, your own deadlights swirl with a curiosity flavored with apprehension. There are other things. Lesser creatures, most of them not even significant enough to have a presence in the macroverse. You've rousted some from your town, and eaten a few parasitic little things that tried to feed off of your true self. You know that there was a Turtle, now just a rotting corpse. You left him alone after a quick exploration long ago proved that you couldn't eat him. There has never been any sign that there might be something on your level until now.

  
The thought of another like you turns the itch into an inviting challenge. You've never thought about the possibility that there might be more of your kind. Now that the chance is there, your curiosity is a forest fire needing to be quenched. You will go to see what this is. Of that, there isn't a shadow of doubt in your mind. There's unease about leaving your territory, deep down and hidden under the need to know. Your presence flickers briefly through the town you've so carefully cultivated. Animals hiss, children wake from unremembered nightmares, and conversations go silent for a moment.

  
As long as you're alive, this town will maintain your essence. You may have to reassert some authority if any smaller creatures wander in during your absence. It would be too dangerous to simply be where the other is, so you will go forth on foot. This way, you can also see what entertaining sights may be along the path. Withdrawing back into your physical form, you bubble and purr in your den, planning the trip you will take. Out, beyond the subterranean lakes beneath your town, over the deserts and grasses until you meet the ocean where the sun rises. Then, north.

  
You will finish your plan while taking a short rest, just enough to digest your meal comfortably. Then, you will take another light feed...and then, you will set out. Your deadlights flash rapidly, and your noises fill the silence of the deep dark.


	2. Even The Best Of Us Come Back Someday

The sun blazes hot, and the only sound is your hooves tapping on the roadway. This form is one of your favorites. Horses are graceful beasts, for creatures that exist only in one dimension. And in your town, where children drink westerns as much as they drink milk from their mothers, a horse is an undeniably attractive creature.

  
You trot as a horse, walk as a human, and fly as a crow. Your form twists into a new shape every few hours, and you move through both night and day. The cars that pass never see you. They do feel you, deep down in their bones, as a subtle shudder and a primitive internal monkey screech of danger. Some of them have to stop a few miles away from you, sicking up the gas station chocolate bars and greasy burgers they've tried to nourish themselves with.

  
\---

  
A girl from the city sits in the desert, marveling at the stars that have always been drowned out by headlights and streetlamps. She has nothing but a blanket and a backpack, a tiny fire and a half-cooked hotdog. She's running to the western sea, to sing and caper and prove that she really can out-act all the women who are just pretty faces. The desert dust hides her freckles and roughs her hair, but she's beautiful enough to make it. An irony, but one that she's not aware of to appreciate. Her wonder and her hope and her soft girlish dreams wrap around her, keeping her safe from the endless night around her.

  
The way those things squirm and die along with her adds an almost sickly-sweet taste to her fear.

  
\---

  
Wind blows through your hair, warm with the coming of the day. Your easy stride is at odds with the tenseness in the air around you as the world waits for the sun to break the horizon. This place feels right. It's a transient sort of rightness, a quiver through the universe and beyond. No one walks with you physically, but you can feel the passing of some other great being in some far away place, a place you cannot reach. You hear run-down bootheels on the road, and when you sniff, there's a scent of festering sickness and better things to come. Emotions come to you, faint as a drop of blood in the sea. Malignant cheer, hellish happiness.

  
You respond with a purring growl into the warm dawn, and continue on your own jolly way.

\---

"Watch out for the skin-walkers, they're rowdy tonight!"

  
"They'll have to change their underwear before their skins if they meet me!", he roars, slurring and stumbling as he exits the bar. Laughter follows him out, almost drowning out the howls of the coyotes. Almost. The wild dogs have been the subject of conversation all night, as no one in town can remember them howling this loudly for so long. The howling will continue for a week after you leave, until they tear a child to bits in broad daylight. The reports will say rabies, even though the slices of grey matter come back from the lab clean.

  
Despite how inebriated he is, he hears you before he sees you. Executing a clumsy turn, he eyes you with light-hearted amusement. You're a thin little coyote, and to his alcohol-addled mind, you look more like one of those fancy pedigree breeds that wouldn't know how to kill a mouse if it laid down and begged for it. His expression turns to one of complete shock when you jerk up onto your hind legs without a sound.

  
You stand over his corpse, a trifle insulted that his heart gave out before you could get more than a snack out of him.

  
\---

  
You look utterly serene. An strange sentiment, since you're a bloodied horse standing perfectly still at the bottom of a pond. You're well-fed in both flesh and spirit, but the itch is growing more intense the closer you get. You haven't seen anything more in the macroverse, but whatever you saw must still be there. Why would you feel such a strong compulsion if it wasn't?

  
A string of bubbles escapes you, flowing around the corpse floating just above your head. It was a stroke of bad luck that you weren't able to eat both of the children trying to catch frogs among the reeds. The older one was just old enough to believe in real danger, but still young enough to believe in monsters. The younger had simply been delighted to see a horse, a honest-to-goodness horse walking down the shore. You let him pet your muzzle to try to entice his sibling closer, only to frighten the other boy off when you suddenly bit the youngster hard enough to sever his hand.

  
Signs are posted warning people to watch out for large snapping turtles in the area. Only the older boy's grandmother believes him when he tells her it was a kelpie.

\---

  
String dangles from the exhaust pipe even though they lost the cans back in Chicago. Even though the legend, **_Just Married!_ ** , has been washed off after going through a locust swarm in Ohio, they're still hopelessly in love. The driver keeps turning to look at his newly minted wife, her snoring nearly in tune with the slow electronic music flowing from the speakers. Unlike the girl, they're not running anywhere. Like you, they're simply traveling, wanting to see what can be seen. A good old roadtrip before they settle down.

  
After stealing yet another glance at the peaceful sleeping face, the driver turns his eyes back to the road. He notes an animal crossing the road, too far ahead to be of any real concern. Some kind of deer? The animal stops, and his last thought is that the reflection of the headlights in your eyes is far too bright. The car, moving at eighty miles per hour, doesn't stop when his heart does. The abrupt flight from the road wakes his wife, and she doesn't have time to scream before it lands and rolls.

  
Astoundingly, she manages to pull herself out of the wreck, brain ignoring the signals telling her to give up and die. She is too muddled with pain to realize that she's left her oh-so-loved husband behind. You helpfully remind her, crouching in front of her in his skin.

  
She only smells the car burning when she sees your eyes boiling and dripping down over your cheekbones.

  
\---

  
There's no questioning that this town is your destination. Just as animals mark their territories with scents and humans with fences, the other has marked its territory with its emotions and power. The feeling is fresh, but deteriorated far more than it should be. Whatever lurks here is weak. Subtler cues indicate that it is some sort of uneasy sleep. You walk brazenly under the signpost, spoiling for whatever will come next.

  
A sign by the road, with a fresh twist of dead grass beneath it, reads : "Derry welcomes you!"


	3. Hi-ho-a-Derry-oh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains major spoilers for the end of the IT novel.

Perhaps because one of your own kind has lived in them for so long, the sewers beneath Derry have a pleasant and familiar vibe to them. If it weren't for your own town, you'd be rather happy to settle into this area. You dearly want to explore every tunnel, but the pull of the other isn't something you can ignore. No matter what happens when you finally encounter it, you must know. You hardly hear your excited chirps, and you notice smalls signs of it everywhere in the tunnels.

  
Most of them aren't anything that a human would perceive. You feel echoes of fear from previous feedings, soaked into the concrete. Every now and then, there's a more physical trace, usually in the form of some small splinter of bone. They're moldering and moss-grown. Unless someone was down here looking for the vanished, they'd likely think the bones were simply from rats.

  
Speak of rodents, there are plenty of them, and they scurry ahead of you with great haste. Their tiny thoughts come into your mind like soap bubbles bursting. They're wary, but they're wondering if you're bringing food they can nibble on. There's also a few thoughts on how It hasn't been bringing any food to the sewers at all. That's useful information to have, and so you decide to let them go without snacking on a few. The wildlife in your territory are accustomed to your cycle. Whenever you emerge early or bed down late, they're always surprised.

  
The other isn't supposed to be sleeping yet. What could drive one of your kind to such weakness? Your body twists in on itself, shrinking and sprouting fur, thick pink tail writhing behind you like a dying worm. The other rats are less likely to run if you look like one of them, and you want to know more before you proceed. If there's still some danger ahead, you will be prepared. You skitter until one of the fearful rodents stops to regard you. Rat-speech is quick and soft, seen and felt more than it is heard.

  
" _ **The Other. Weakness. What caused this?**_ " Your words are just slightly too fast, too abrupt. Nonetheless, this type of communication is better than the plain spoken language of humans. It is more direct, and easier to communicate a point. Such a thing is very important when you're communicating with animals that live and die in the span of a breath.

  
The other rat whisks his paws over his whiskers, betraying his nervousness. It takes him a few moments to formulate a reply. " _The humans came. Fought It. It lost._ ", he says with the rodent equivalent of a nervous shrug. Secondary messages float between you, little entreaties begging you not to slay him for this news. He squeaks with fright when you shoulder past him, but you're once again merciful. You'll likely never again see this particular rat, but who knows? If you do, you'll bring a little bite of meat for him.

  
You follow a faint gleam down a side tunnel, letting your mind roam out ahead of you. Besides the insignificant animals, the only other creature in the sewers is the Other. The humans are gone now, even if they were here only recently. The light is growing brighter, and the tunnel opens up into a cistern. Its presence is strong here, radiating from the towering pile of junk in the center of the room. Your murine form reacts to the tangled web of emotions by sneezing, as if to clear the most recent ones out of you.

  
The cistern reeks of sour-tasting fear. The taste isn't unpleasant, but it's so different from human and animal fear that it gives you pause. You straighten your spine, stretching to the full height this little body can provide. There are a few rotting corpses here and there, outnumbered by the bones tucked into the junkpile and hidden beneath the water. Despite the emotions hanging thick in the air, you can sense that It lies deeper yet.

  
You follow the scent of fear around the junkpile, noting the smears of blood along the way. Human blood, and the blood of something that is you-but-not-you. Lead by the traces, you come to a drainage pipe. It's an easy matter to hop down it and land softly far below, but what you find keeps you standing there for several minutes. There's more blood here, thick clots of the stuff that secrete pain and unhappiness. That alone wouldn't bother you, but there's another scent mingled in. You recognize it clearly, it's something you've encountered before.

  
The Other is getting ready to brood. You smell this way, when you're heavy with your own clutches. Shifting into your mossy form to move more swiftly, you hiss quietly to yourself. The prospect of the Other having a nest of eggs bothers you far more than the decayed cobwebs and human corpses you scrabble through. Your own broods have never hatched. The tiny sparks within them have never even flared into full life as deadlights.

  
Jealousy is new, but as you progress, you find that it's unfounded. The humans that came here to fight it were merciless, and they didn't even bother to hide what they did. The Other's eggs are shattered into shards, and the tiny forms of the lives they held are rotting husks. You flow over them, around them, uneasy even though the danger that ended them is long gone. The emotions swirling in you are conflicting, uncomfortable. These weren't your offspring, and something in you is happy that your own future spawn won't have them as competition.

  
The curious part of you is sad, wanting more creatures on your level to interact with. There's anger that mere humans would dare to harm them, and fear about the levels of conviction those humans had to have had. There are many of the dead offspring, and you would like to think more on the new sensations you're feeling, but you are close now. You can feel the deadlights of the Other, pulsing slow and erratic with pain. In the macroverse, you can even see It. It is like you. Endless, predatory, eldritch. Unlike you, It is curled into a ball of torn flesh, trying to protect Its flickering lights.

  
It looks much the same in the physical world, only in the form of a giant spider. You brush against It in both places, and there's a small moment that feels like a static shock in which you touch Its dreams. They're feverish and demented even to your perception. You can feel It weakening and dying next to you. This will be Its final rest. You have a short internal battle over if it would be more fun to watch the Other die or to try and help, and attempting to keep It alive wins.

  
You settle next to it, and the pitch dark of the deep sewers is broken by the warm glow of your lights. Fear slips out with that glow, and the Other absorbs it without waking. The feedings replay themselves in front of your eyes, and you have to struggle not to consume the fear before It can. This isn't as natural as nourishing your eggs while they incubate, but it seems to be working. It's also relaxing, and your thoughts about finding more food and a nearby denning site slip away.

  
You will hunger soon, and in a few months, you will be ready to sleep. For now, you let your stored energy flow into It, and watch Its dreams slowly settling into less frantic fancies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad that people like this fic, so let me know if there's something you'd like to see happen in it! I'll take it into consideration, and if it doesn't fit with the tone I'm going for, I might do it as a one-shot.


	4. Dream By Night, Wish By Day

A few miles from Derry, you lick blood from your muzzle and sniff the night air for more prey. Caring for the Other is proving to be far more strenuous than anything you've ever experienced so far. You've had to spend more time hunting than exploring your new surroundings, much to your displeasure, but at least you get to go out of town on your hunts. You haven't been able to piece together what happened to the Other from the glimpses of dreams you've seen. You have no desire to have the same fate fall down upon your head, so you range out of Derry's comforting borders and haunt the towns around it. Tonight hasn't been very productive. You've only made one kill, and there's still no sign of the other thing you seek.

  
You're fairly sure at this point that It will die if you leave It on Its own. While It is healing, the process is slow. If you go back to your own beautiful town with your wonderful den, It will die and leave you bored. Determined to get your money's worth, as the humans say, you've been searching for some place to go to ground for the next cycle. You don't trust Its breached sanctuary. To quote another human phrase, you'd both be toast if the humans came back. The problem is that there's nothing deep enough here for your tastes. Even Its cave, deep beneath the sewers, is closer to the ground than your home lake.

  
Even though you'd prefer a site in Derry, you keep your senses alert as you pad through the woods. If you can find a good location, you won't complain. The Other might, though. Still, It is sleeping, and It was foolish enough to draw such wrath to Its haven. You have every right to select a den. All thoughts of your upcoming hibernation grind to a halt when you feel a slight tickle in the aether. A human, just one. Your canine nose is sharp enough to tell you that he's a younger male, smoking a cigarette as he goes. You fall through the world, emerging directly behind him. He's already nervous about something, and you breathe it in hungrily.

  
The world shimmers around him, and he doesn't even take notice. He's too trained on the flashlight beam at his feet. He's afraid of being caught by the fuzz, as he thinks of them. But more than that, he's afraid of the oppressive darkness pushing all around him. He's afraid of being lost in these woods, even though he knows they can't be more than a few miles wide. Abstract fears, but you've always enjoyed bending reality to your will to make them come true. You see the world double, both as what it actually is and what he's seeing. Your little pocket of madness is darker, with branches looming closer.

  
His flashlight abruptly dies, and that's when he takes notice of how dark it is. While he curses between shallow shaky breaths, your form liquefies. There's vague hints of biological life as he knows it, limbs and eyes and claws, but you're just a mass of darkness now. His mounting fear seeps into you, and you twist until you're stretched through the shadows all around him. The moment he looks up at the moon, grateful for the small amount of light, it vanishes with an audible pop. You start to hiss, all rattle-snake and TV static, as thousands of eyes open up in the pitch darkness. He screams, and you contract inwards, mouths ripping open all over you to tear him to bits.

  
Two corpses in the woods might draw attention, and by the time you're done consuming him, you feel like a bit of a glutton. You pool to the ground, your illusions fading, and then reform into a shadowy feline monstrosity. If what this human believed was true is, there's someone else in these woods tonight. His dealer. You debate going after him, and decide to turn your head back to your temporary home. You make a mental note to come back to this place. For whatever reasons, eating humans that have visited the dealers to obtain their various wares always leaves you in a relaxed state. Perhaps it's something to do with their belief in the stuff.

  
\--

  
By the time you're back in town, the sun is well above the horizon. A good thing, for you would have missed the culvert if not for the sun's glare. The glitter of broken glass reflecting the morning rays attracts your attention, and you move to inspect the rubbish. A bottle of soda, left here by a homeless man passing through. You snuffle around it, even licking the shards at one point, and hardly notice when your tail brushes up against something half-hidden in brambles. An eye pops open at the tip of your tail, investigating the time-worn stone and darkness beyond. Instead of turning around, you simply restructure yourself so that the bulk of your senses reside in your tail instead.

  
There's no scent of anything calling the ancient culvert home, so you squirm through the brambles and over the dirt that partially fills the entrance. The structure is dilapidated, and the faint whispers of emotion are nearly gone. They're enough to tell you that the vanished road was here before Derry was Derry, and from the signs outside, hardly anyone passes through the thick woods now. The little tunnel is only about five feet long, and maybe three high, but you can dig deeper in the center to make it more secure. The only question is if humans will disturb this neck of the woods while you're hibernating. It's marshy, thick with undergrowth, and overall unsuitable for building. You've seen humans do stranger things, of course, but this seems like a good burrow.

  
You brush up against the sides of the tunnel, marking it with a message that will make other creatures turn tail. You're strong, aggressive, and more than ready to defend this area. Animals and lesser creatures should give the culvert a wide berth now, and more sensitive humans will feel nervous in the area. Later, once you've tended to the Other....The Other. The Other is going to be a problem. It is sleeping in the form of a giant spider, much too big to fit into a well-dug chamber, let alone the main tunnel of the culvert. It doesn't stir when you suddenly appear next to It, your oily form dripping with dismay. If the problem was just moving It, there wouldn't be a problem. You can easily be something strong enough for that task. The true problem is that you don't want to spend the time digging out a hole this large.

  
You pace around It, sending frustrated little half-thoughts Its way. " ** _Change. You're too big. Smaller. What a pain. Smaller, now._** " Being asleep, the Other does not respond. You squish your paws into the soft ground, shuffling back and forth like you want It to play with you. Turning into a woodchuck, you try again, projecting cajoling emotions towards the Other. " ** _Entertaining. Not bored now. You too._** "

  
Its deadlights react to your outgoing emotions, buzzing at a slightly slower speed. Well, that did...something. You pull your furry little body up onto It, resting on the Other's spidery form. You put forward more friendly thoughts, your deadlights trying to match the speed of Its deadlights. Another new feeling, this. Manipulating humans is easy, but trying to convince one of your own to do something while asleep is a whole different deal. You try to relax, closing your eyes, focusing on how the heart of this physical body pumps in time with your deadlights. Your pulse begins to slow as Its speeds up slightly to match yours, and once again, there's the odd electrical feeling of connection.

  
In the macroverse, the transfer of emotions looks like tiny flashes of lightning between your lights. The feeling of being safe and well-fed, non-aggression, fun, and relaxation after a good kill. It shifts closer to you, and you will your flesh to twist into a new shape. Your fur thickens and turns a darker shade of brown, while the hair on your tail sheds and falls as it broadens into a paddle. " _ **You too. Safe with me. Smaller, different shape. Good to be.**_ " As webbing laces out like strands of silk between your stubby rodent fingers, you feel Its physical form changing. Belatedly, you realize that laying on top of the Other might not have been a good idea, and you bounce like a furry cannonball when you hit the ground. The connection snaps, giving you the briefest feeling of utter loneliness. It quickly fades when you hop back to your feet, scurrying over to inspect the Other.

  
It worked, for the most part. It is a large beaver, with far too many legs, but It is now a much more manageable size. The Other is hurting again, apparently not healed enough to transform yet. Before you feed It, you turn into a large wolf, curious to see if It will copy you again. Nothing happens this time, and you seize It in your jaws. Once your long sleep is done, you hope It will be amiable to doing this again. With a flash, you're back in your culvert, and you set the Other down in the deepest part. It needs the fear you've collected, and so you feed It, tail wagging with muffled thumps against the dirt.

  
The days blur into a comfortable cycle of feeding, expanding your new den, and tending to the Other. It doesn't wake, and you don't try suggesting a change to It again. You're sure It will be able to change without pain with time, and as sleepiness starts to weigh you down, you're eager for your next awakening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this, we wrap up the introduction! The next chapter will see both the reader and Pennywise awake, so look forward to more eldritch interactions!


	5. Interlude 1: Indifference on the Wind

_**Panic.** _

  
_The calm you feel isn't yours, and that's what finally drags you out of the clinging long sleep. The emotion is wrong. The sounds of this place are wrong. The dirt, the walls, the Thing in here with you, it's all terribly wrong. You're afraid, and you've had enough of that. The burrow suddenly flames with your lights, and you sink hundreds of teeth into the Thing. Thick, sticky blood drips as the Thing lets out an indignant shriek. It flashes its own lights, drowning out yours completely. Strong. It's far too strong for you to defeat right now. You're still weak. You can feel it feeding from your fear and anger, and you release your grip when a brace of claws comes swinging at you._

  
_The forest floor erupts with your flight, and the Thing follows you in another spray of soil. Its physical form is a constantly changing mess of fangs and claws, as is yours. There is no one form you can settle in that would scare it. You both know what the other really is, and your fear stems from the fact that the Thing exists. You are supposed to be the only one. Deadlights flicker from between clenched teeth, reflecting off of the low hanging clouds and dancing in each drop of rain. Even as you circle each other, posturing and threatening, you take note of the color and strength of the Thing's lights._

  
_Weaker. If you were at your full strength, it would be weaker than you. But you're not at your full strength, are you? If you hadn't been injured by them...It swallows your sudden blossoming of fear with a chattering cry, and that fear gives it one horrible advantage. The Thing quiets, and it hides its lights as it becomes a simple human. A simple human coated in your blood and the grime of the sewers. A human who reeks of your slain offspring, even though it wasn't he who killed them. No, this one...this one is Bill._

  
_You flee. In the macroverse and on Earth, you flee. You flee like a rat before a terrier. Ghostly pain fills your body, right down into your heart. Your thoughts whirl incomprehensibly, bits and pieces of memories adding onto your fear. What if Bill Denbrough is still alive, what if they're all alive, did you really kill Kasprak, are they all here, is Bill here, is the Thing here? The thoughts don't come to a stop until you halt, suddenly aware that you've reached the deep sewers. The familiar place is a comfort to you, even if it is a breached sanctuary. Bells jingle, and you collapse into the cold water._

  
_You need to think. How much danger are you in? The Thing. Did the Thing follow you? A sharp jab of irritation answers you, and you flinch even though it's still far away in the forest. How did the Thing do that? You extend your senses towards it more cautiously, and you can feel it bristling at your attention. The great deal of anger, fear, and aggression makes you bristle in return until you realize that the Thing is reflecting your emotions like a mirror. Your emotions are strong, but they don't totally mask what it feels. There are no words, but you can clearly tell that it doesn't intend to come after you. At least for right now. Who knows what the Thing will do?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, hasn't it? Let's see if I can keep on trucking and bring you more good monster content! Kinda wanna do more fics to get my writing muse back up, but I'm not sure who I'd do them for.


	6. It's Tough to be a God

_Stabbing attributed to mass hysteria after purported U.F.O. sighting_  
_The town of Derry is in an uproar after a stabbing incident and an alleged U.F.O. sighting took place Friday evening. Though it was overcast with slight rain, several citizens reported flashes of light from the sky near the border of Derry. Those who were closest to the sighting are currently hospitalized after outbreaks of hysteria, but in a public service announcement, officials declared they would recover quickly. The same hysteria is attributed as the motive in the stabbing of Nathaniel S. There has not yet been an official statement released about Samantha W., who perpetrated the crime, but eyewitnesses say she was screaming about the 'U.F.O.' lights as she wandered into Derry proper. Miss W.'s dog, a Labrador-spaniel mix, is currently missing._

\--

  
You stand still, unruffled, as teeth longer than your legs scythe through the air next to your muzzle. There's a rush of air over your whiskers, but none of them are actually touched. Those fangs haven't made contact with your flesh for a few days, and you think that it's going to remain that way for a while. It draws Its head back, and screeches at you wordlessly, flecking you with spittle. You give an equine snort of disapproval, and the immense condescension you feel smothers the barbed anger It tries to hook you with. It may not be in immediate danger of dying anymore, but It's still weak. As an emotivore, It can feel your confidence and smugness over being the stronger one, and the fact certainly isn't helping the aggression problem.

  
Even now, you can tell that It's struggling to maintain the snake-like form It's in. Scales flake off and float upwards, only to vanish into nothingness. The form is too big and burning too much energy that It doesn't have. It hasn't made a single kill since the two of you awakened, having retreated to the sewers after the chaotic reaction It had upon first seeing you. You're nearly as underfed, but you've had a light feeding off of the man laying in the shallow water at your hooves. He's still moving, as much as a man with a broken back can. Tiny fidgets and twitches, but nothing like the desperate struggling when you first attacked him. You had intended to give the Other your catch, but if It is being like this, perhaps you need to teach It a lesson.

  
Your change occurs with as much drama and fanfare as you can muster. You croon a high-pitched note over a deeper bass growl that causes the water below to tremble as the cracks and slurps of reforming flesh echo through the tunnels. Colors run riot over your inconsistent form, set alight by various flashes and pops of light. You catch a hint of fear from It before It hisses and makes a mock-strike at you. You drip out of the way, liquid form rebuilding yourself behind It. In the time it takes It to whirl around, you're in the shape of a creature from another planet, decked in colors that a human eye couldn't perceive, all teeth and barbed spikes. You lunge forward, heavy clawed hands stopping an inch away from It. The scales flake off more rapidly now, and you can feel the energy building as It transforms into some equally alien being. It seizes the man in a set of serrated needles, only to find that you've covered the entrance to the deep sewers with your gleaming body.

  
You feel anger tearing into your skin like thousands of tiny cuts, and the next thing you know, It's charging you, still holding the human. Without giving up your prime position, you grow a few additional limbs from your back, and you crush trash and bones when you strike out with them. Each blow is carefully aimed to nearly hit the Other. It dodges skillfully, for something so weak, skidding to a stop in front of your maw and posing Its natural weapons at your eyes. Glowing spines point at It, and you release a caw of laughter out of a hideously human smile on your toothy face. You bring your head closer to It, taunting It and daring It to push forward, just a bit. You send mockingly cajoling feelings towards It, you bring a hand to Its neck. A human face bubbles out of your snout, and you let out a little cry through it. " _ **I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you**_!"

  
The sudden and immense outrage from It is hilarious enough that more faces twist out of your flesh, each one cackling madly. This only drives It to further spitting frustration, and It shrinks down into a decidedly ruffled and fluffy human shape. When the clown in front of you begins an aggressive bout of dancing, you absolutely lose it. You screech and writhe, tears streaming from your human faces with the strength of your mirth. You can tell the dance was clearly meant to intimidate you by displaying style and vigor, but it is one of the single funniest things you have seen in your entire long existence. Still barking laughter, you roll away from the pipe, allowing It to leap up and perch on the edge. As you wiggle and claw at the ground, It hisses with haughty indignation. A few flashes of light come from Its clenched teeth, and then It dashes down the pipe, dragging the man behind It.

  
You feel It go, sending a few strong pulses of humor after it. It flares up with enough anger to sting your nose, and you view it as the equivalent of putting up a tape line on the floor to divide a room. Rolling onto your feet, you draw back from Its place in the greater realms, and settle to grooming a shoulder before heading to one of the exit tunnels. You've learned much in the days since your awakening. You let the faces along your form exposit to you, reading your thoughts back in the voices of victims long since turned to dust.

  
" **It don't like us none, nosirree.** " " _Aww, It's not curious at all. What a shame! We could have a right dandy time together._ " "Hey guys, I'm hungry! Let's go get a burger!" " _ **Garbage clowns go in the garbage.**_ " " _Yipee-ki-aye! Don't hesitate, come down to Jeffy's Feed to find It in the sewers_!" " **Fight It**!"

  
Hunger is making you a bit scatter-brained, you decide. Crawling through a sewer grate in the form of a rat, you try to extend yourself in search of prey. Unfamiliarity and It clamoring in the back of your mind to leave are a bit of a handicap. Having another of your kind around is a bit of a pain when it comes to hunting. It does not at all approve of you taking Its prey, but It has been sulking in the sewers instead of doing anything about it. If It ever manages to feed without your help, perhaps It will try to run you off. Wouldn't that be interesting? So far, your altercations have been limited to pinging one another with emotions to various results, or such posturing as you just came from. It isn't quite willing to risk death fighting you, and you're not willing to risk major injury yourself. Even as you shift into a human shape, you wonder idly how humans manage to live in such social groups. They must not have such extensive periods of flexing their abilities on one another when they first meet.

  
You rather enjoy showing off, though. There aren't many creatures capable of being impressed and cowed by you without losing their minds. The temper tantrums It throws when you do so are vastly worth it. Part of you wants It to get stronger. The bigger part of you wants It to stay weaker so that you can continue your playful teasing and showboating. Its anger is a fascinating thing. The emotion has the potential to both hurt you and feed you, but the Other doesn't seem to be able to make the effect on you consistent. You've tried to use your curiosity and humor in a similar way, seeing if It will reactive positively. So far, It just gets more miffed each time. But, unless one of you kills the other, you'll have a long time to pester It. Saliva starts to flood your mouth, and you jerk your head to look up into the window of a nearby house. This one, you'll eat all on your own. 


End file.
